On December 25, when the news of a Delhi constable's death was the only thing Delhi Police wanted to talk about, trying to discredit all protests as "violent", a group of girls, aged between 16 and 19, had a harrowing time in the heart of Delhi.

Most of those gathered at Jantar Mantar were meeting for the first time and were marching towards Parliament Street where prohibitory orders were in force when two girls were hauled off to Parliament Street Police Station —"dragged by the hair" —on charges of "inciting the crowd" to violence.

“Just save my daughter," 47-year-old Usha Saxena cried out when she saw cops pulling her 19-year-old daughter Shambhavi's hair and hitting her head against a wall. “Don’t let them harm her.”

This is how she described their ordeal in a letter to the Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit:

Dear ma’am,

My daughter Shambhavi and I and a colleague of mine Reema Ganguly went to Jantar Mantar today 25th Dec to take part in a peaceful gathering there against the gang-rape.

At around 4pm two girls came running upto us in tears and said that the police had dragged away 2 of their female friends to Parliament Street Police Station and they a sked us to help bring them back. The three of us joined 9 other women and we went to the police station. When we reached there we only saw male constables. We demanded to talk to a female senior officer and said that the 3 women must be released immediately. The policemen very rudely and aggressively tried to chase us out. We refused to leave without those 3 women and so one male cop ordered some female cops standing in the courtyard to come in and arrest all of us.

All of us linked our arms and were being dragged away when I saw a female constable dragging a girl by her hair. My daughter Shambhavi ran to help her and before my eyes I saw a male cop and a female cop pulling my daughter’s hair and hitting her head against a wall I managed to extricate myself and ran towards the 2 young girls to protect them and we managed to get them away…we were then pushed into a small room where we found 4 other women detained earlier— they also recounted how they were slapped and their clothes torn while they were dragged here.

We were kept in that room for 3 hours with no reason being given and finally some woman from an NGO Deepjyoti she said came and said she will get us out if we apologise. We refused and when asked for our names and addresses and phone numbers we all collectively decided only to give other names because we were terrified of what the police would do with our contact information … the three of us— my daughter, my colleague and I gave our names as Divya, Geeta and Aastha.

While we were just about to leave, some cops came rushing out and demanded to know who ‘Shambhavi’ was, because some Shambhavi was informing the media that we were beaten up and detained (my daughter had been tweeting all that was happening) Terrified of what they would do to her, we pulled together and rushed out of there.

We reached home, terrified and hurting all over and now suddenly at 10.24pm, I receive a call from 01123361100 where a man said he was from the same NGO and if Shambhavi did not come and apologise to the SHO at Parliament Street, they would file an FIR against us and come and arrest us in the night itself.
Ma’am, please help.

Shambhavi, whose tweets perhaps led to their release, recounted their experience after the cops realised the matter was out in the media. “They called us names, threatened us and beat us up,” she told The Telegraph just after she had been let off.

“We don’t know what we did. We were all girls, peacefully protesting. They didn’t even have the decency to tell us what they were picking us up for. They told us not to tell anyone once we were outside what happened with us.”

A 16-year-old, one of those detained, said their mobile phones were taken away. “They took down our names and addresses and even the contact details of our fathers, giving us a veiled threat that if we opened our mouths, they would do more than just slap us around,” said the girl who had bruises on her face and shivered in the winter evening chill as she stood outside the police station after being released.

One woman constable, she said, told them “yahan law nahi chalta (the law doesn’t work here)”.

Among those detained was another 16-year-old who had been protesting against the bus gang rape for the past three days and whose parents are currently out of Delhi.

“I have been coming here every day. Never have I been violent. I don’t know why this happened to us. They wouldn’t even tell us why they were treating us like this. Some of the parents who had turned up to take their kids were threatened with dire consequences if they allowed their daughters to be at any protest from now on,” she said.

And very importantly, why dont we have legal education as part of school curriculum? Our Left Liberal bleeding hearts are demanding that sex education be brought early right in middle schools. But what about education on our legal systems, our common laws, our legal grievance redressal mechanisms and our constitutinal rights and duties? Why is that we dont expand the scope of all these and ensure that every school passed out adult knows what to do when he or she is assaulted (sexually or not), cheated, burgled, and denied some public service?

This , is MUCH MUCH More important than teaching the techniques of masturbation and blowjobs in school curriculum .

Arun Maheswari >> As a word of caution, the middle class though should well remember that "rule of law" will work for it, if and only if "rule of law" works for the lowest of the low - those at the margins - and in a country like India various "margins" is where a majority still live. And if the middle class keeps growing not just by virtue of birth which means actively support ways to get to "universal education" and "healthcare".

Pardon me , but why is that some people bring this CLASS issue in every such case?

Rule of Law is Rule of Law. It applies to everyone, be it rich, middle class and poor.

And what has rule of law and enforcing it to do with healthcare and education investments? It is like telling that doctors must treat STD/AIDS patients first before attending to malaria affected patients..

The primary, or first responsiblity of a government is ENFORCING LAW AND ORDER ON ALL CITIZENS. And for that, we , India as a country should invest sufficienty in LAW AND ORDER. We are a nation of 120 crore people, huge teeming cities and large diverse population. But do we have adequate number of police stations, women police personnel, courts and judges in first place?

I read this week that Judges get a 10 day vacation for Christmas. Come on- In a country where there is so much backlog of cases, Judiciary should come under ESMA and we should have like hospitals, courts that work non stop, 12 hours , 7 days a week, 365 days an year. Are hospitals closed for 10 day christmas or 3 day diwali holidays?

Just like we expect India or any nation to invest say 5% of its GDP on healthcare and education, we should invest 1-2% of GDP compulsorily on internal law and order . And we should have more police force (and diverse one, diversity not just in caste or religion but in class and gender too) and judiciary should be expanded to clear all the backlog of court cases and as a nation we should invest in forensic evidence gathering to deliver speedy justice to the affected. And we are not talking about all these at all!!

Suppose a group of 15 women(ladies) thought you were anti-social, and wanted to accost you. If you were needed somewhere, you would need to go there. Otherwise, you would either experience some intimidation, or a need to try not to be a 'victim'. If this policeman had felt he was accosted, and others felt the policeman felt so, and wasn't doing anything, he might have been attacked by a group of a 100, and might have been dead. I think, the two ladies should have protested not among people who appeared that it didn't matter that violence could happen. If you happen to know a rapist, agitate peacefully, and in large numbers, where he would be usually. People should generally know, that when a large group of people look pretty unhappy, and seem to be from the same purpose, that unusual measures should not be taken. Usually, the govt. imposes curfew, when govt. property and govt. employees are in danger. It would really make sense, and be most effective, if one agitated in large numbers in front of the rapist, and peacefully. The police cannot prevent crime, if society is seen to encourage crime, by those seen as criminals.